Accessibility and Access Keys [0]
The toxic blue-green algae that are affecting 75 lakes in Quebec have struck close to home, with a definite sighting at Lake Edja, near Gracefield, and a suspicious bloom at one end of Meech Lake.
As a precaution, the National Capital Commission has closed Meech Lake’s O’Brien Beach to swimmers until tests can determine whether the bacteria in the bloom that has accumulated in a shallow bay is toxic. Results should be available within 10 days.
At Lake Edja, about 100 kilometres north of downtown Ottawa near Blue Sea Lake, the results are in: The blue-green algae first seen on July 3 are the toxic kind. However, the levels of toxins in a July 4 sample show the concentration is very low – too low to present a danger to human life.
The blue-green algae, which look like broccoli soup when they form a bloom, have not been reported in Eastern Ontario.
“People were panicking earlier this month,” said Laurent Fortin, mayor of the village of Blue Sea. “Now that there’s no danger, people can even drink the water.”
The strict guidelines issued by the Quebec environment ministry, which forbade drinking the water, cooking with it, using it to do dishes or bathe and discouraged swimming in Lake Edja, have been lifted.
But some cottagers said Wednesday they are still nervous and are transporting water to their waterfront properties.
Some, such as Lucien and Gisle Pageau of Ottawa, have changed their habits. They have switched to phosphate-free dish soap, shampoo and soap after learning blue-green algae are more likely to form a bloom on the water in a phosphate-rich environment.
Garry Bowes, also from Ottawa, bought his cottage 40 years ago, when the lake was pristine. “I’d love it if people would not use fertilizers on their lawns. This is not a place to bring the city. We have to preserve the difference,” he said after a short canoe trip with his grandson, Laurent Molino, 9.
Mr. Bowes said he hopes the blue-green algae scare will serve as a wake-up call for cottagers, reminding them the lake cannot take too much abuse.
There are more than 100 cottages around Edja Lake, most of them on one-acre properties with 200 feet of lake frontage.
Louise Boulay has lived on Lake Edja for most of the past 40 years, the past 10 as one of the few year-round residents. The self-proclaimed “Mother Nature of Lake Edja” wishes – and hopes – cottagers would stop using phosphates.
“Some have a lawn like a golf course, with flowers next to the lake,” she said, pointing out the native vegetation she lets grow on her part of the shoreline.
Earlier this month, she said she noticed a blue-green scum right off her corner of the lake, as if paint had been dropped on the surface of the water.
“It stretched for three properties, all the way to the public access” to the lake, she recalled. She first told the neighbour not to let the children swim in it, then called the environment ministry, which tested the water the next day.
Marc Dubreuil, a regional director at the ministry, said cyanobacteria, as the blue-green algae are known to scientists, are almost as old as life itself and they are naturally present in just about every lake in the province.
“It’s a bacteria, living off nitrogen, and it can shift into an algae, which can move up to the surface of the water,” he said. At the algae stage, they can accumulate in high number in blooms and it’s at those concentrations that the toxins can be dangerous to human life.
Toxins emitted by three of the hundreds of different types of cyanobacteria can attack the nervous system or internal organs, such as the liver. Exposure can result in a skin rash.
He said only time will clear the waters of the high concentration of algae.
Mr. Dubreuil noted human factors have a large role to play in causing the blooms.
“Phosphates from fertilizers, septic tanks, the removal of shore vegetation are all factors.”
Vegetation acts as a filter, preventing phosphates found in the soil and carried by the watershed from making their way to a lake.
Boiling the water, using chlorine or algaecides to treat it only makes the problem worse, as dead cyanobacteria cells will release their toxins in the water.
It’s those potential toxins that worry Meagan Vernon, a guest of the Johnstons, who have a cottage on Meech Lake.
Wednesday, along with her husband, Jon, they took Eria Johnston and their water toys by canoe to the nearest beach. When they arrived, they found it closed to swimmers.
The algae were found at the end of the lake, she said, but “I’d be more scared if we found it was the toxic kind.”
No human fatalities have been reported from exposure to blue-green algae, said Gatineau Park biologist Sandra Cook, who said O’Brien Beach could reopen in 10 days if no other blooms are seen, and if tests show the algae were not toxic.
Biologist Richard Carignan, from Universit de Montral, warned the “blue-algae crisis” could be overblown. Cyanobacteria occur naturally and can be found at some level in just about all lakes and rivers, he said.
“Whether (blue-green algae) are a problem or not is a question of degree.”
With files from the Montreal Gazette
Ottawa Citizen 2007